“As you say, it’s a common name. Did this man mention anyone else, Excellency Paknouri?”
“He may have. God protect us! But who are they - this Revolutionary Komiteh? Ali Kia, surely you’d know?”
“Many names have been mentioned,” Kia said importantly, hiding his instant unease every time “Revolutionary Komiteh” was uttered. Like everyone else in government or outside it, he thought disgustedly, I don’t have any real information about its actual makeup or when or where it meets, only that it seemed to come into being the moment Khomeini returned to Iran, barely two weeks ago and, since yesterday when Bakhtiar fled into hiding, it’s been acting like it was a law unto itself, ruling in Khomeini’s name and with his authority, precipitously appointing new judges, most with no legal training whatsoever, authorizing arrests, revolutionary courts, and immediate executions, totally outside normal law and jurisprudence - and against our Constitution! May all their houses bum down and they go to the hell they deserve!
“Only this morning my friend Mehdi…” he began confidentially, then stopped, pretending to notice the staff still crowding the doorway for the first time, waved an imperious hand dismissing them. When the door was reluctantly closed, he dropped his voice, passing on the rumor as though it was private knowledge, “Only this morning, with, er, with our blessing, he went to the Ayatollah and threatened to resign unless the Revolutionary Komiteh stopped bypassing him and his authority and so put them in their place for all time.”
“Praise be to God!” Paknouri said, very relieved. “We didn’t win the revolution to let more lawlessness take the place of SAVAK, foreign domination, and the Shah!”
“Of course not! Praise be to God that now the government is in the best of hands. But please, Excellency Paknouri, please continue with your harrowing story.”
“There’s not much more to tell you, Ali,” Paknouri said, calmer and braver now, surrounded by such powerful friends. “I, er, I went down to see these intruders at once and told them it was all a fatuous mistake, but this boneheaded, illiterate piece of dog turd just waved the paper in my face, said I was arrested, and that I was to go with them. I told them to wait - I told them to wait and went to fetch some papers but my wife… my wife told me not to trust them, that perhaps they were Tudeh or mujhadin in
disguise, or fedayeen. I agreed with her and decided it would be best to come here to consult with you and the others.” He put the real facts out of his mind, that he had fled the moment he had heard the leader call out in the name of Revolutionary Komiteh, and Uwari personally, that Paknouri the Miser submit to God for crimes against God.
“My poor friend,” Bakravan said. “My poor friend, how you must have suffered! Never mind, you’re safe now. Stay here tonight. Ali, directly after first prayer tomorrow, go to the prime minister’s office and make sure this matter is dealt with and those fools are punished. We all know Emir Paknouri’s a patriot, that he and all the goldsmiths supported the revolution and are essential to this loan.” Wearily he closed his ears to all the platitudes that Ali Kia was uttering now.
He studied Paknouri, seeing his still-pallid face and sweat-matted hair. Poor fellow, what a shock they must have given him. What a shame, with all his riches and good name - connected as he is through Cousin Valik’s wife Annoush to the Qajars - that all my work for Sharazad came to naught. What a shame he didn’t sire children with her and so cement our families together, even one child, for then certainly there would never have been a divorce and my troubles wouldn’t have been compounded with this Lochart foreigner. However much this foreigner tries to learn our ways he never will. And how expensive it is to keep him to uphold the family’s reputation! I must talk to Cousin Valik and again ask him to arrange for Lochart to have extra monies - Valik and his greed-filled IHC partners can well afford to do that for me from the millions they earn, most of it in foreign currency now! What would ft cost them? Nothing! The cost would be passed on to Gavallan and S-G. The partners owe me a thousand favors, I who for years have advised them how to gain so much control and wealth with so little effort! “Pay Lochart yourself, Jared, Excellency,” Valik had said to him rudely the last time he’d asked him. “Surely that’s your own charge. You share everything we gain - and what’s such a tiny amount to my favorite cousin and the richest bazaari in Tehran?”
“But it should be a partnership charge. We can use him when we have 100 percent control. With the new plan for the future of IHC, the partnership will be richer than ever an - ”
“I will at once consult the other partners. Of course, it is their decision not mine….”
Liar, the old man thought, sipping tea, but then, I would have said the same. He stifled a yawn, tired now and hungry. A nap before dinner would do me good. “So sorry, Excellencies, so sorry but I have urgent business to attend to. Paknouri, old friend, I’m glad everything is resolved. Stay here tonight, Meshang will arrange quilts and cushions, and don’t worry! Ali, my friend, walk with me to the bazaar gate - do you have transport?” he asked thinly, knowing that the first perk of a deputy minister would be a car and chauffeur and unlimited gasoline. “Yes, thank you, the PM insisted I arrange it, insisted - the importance of our department, I suppose.”
“As God wants!” Bakravan said.
Well satisfied, they all went out of the room, down the narrow stairs and into the small passageway that led to the open-fronted shop. Their smiles vanished and bile filled their mouths.
Waiting there were the same five Green Bands, lolling on the desks and chairs, all armed with U.S. Army carbines, all in their early twenties, unshaven or bearded, their clothes poor and soiled, some with holed shoes, some sockless. The leader picked his teeth silently, the rest were smoking, carelessly dropping their ash on Bakravan’s priceless Kash’kai carpets. One of these youths coughed badly as he smoked, his breath wheezing. Bakravan felt his knees weakening. All of his staff stood frozen against one of the walls. Everyone. Even his favorite teaboy. Out in the street it was very quiet, no one about - even the owners of the moneylending shops across the alley seemed to have vanished.
“Salaam, Agha, the Blessing of God on you,” he said politely, his voice sounding strange. “What can I do for you?”
The leader paid no attention to him, just kept his eyes boring into Paknouri, his face handsome but scarred by the parasite disease, carried by sandflies and almost endemic in Iran. He was in his early twenties, dark eyes and hair and work-scarred hands that toyed with the carbine. His name was Yusuf Senvar - Yusuf the bricklayer.
The silence grew and Paknouri could stand the strain no longer. “It’s all a mistake,” he screamed. “You’re making a mistake!”
“You thought you’d escape the Vengeance of God by running away?” Yusuf’s voice was soft, almost kind - though with a coarse village accent that Bakravan could not place.
“What Vengeance of God?” Paknouri screamed. “I’ve done nothing wrong, nothing.”
“Nothing? Haven’t you worked for and with foreigners for years, helping them to carry off the wealth of our nation?”
“Of course not to do that but to create jobs and help the econ - ” “Nothing? Haven’t you served the Satan Shah for years?”
Again Paknouri shouted, “No, I was in opposition, everyone knows I… I was in oppo - ”
“But you still served him and did his bidding?”
Paknouri’s face was twisted and almost out of control. His mouth worked but he could not get the words out. Then he croaked, “Everyone served him - of course everyone served him, he was the Shah, but we worked for the revolution - the Shah was the Shah, of course everyone served him while he was in power…”